Park, Yard Work, and City Creek

Thursday night was such a wonderful night (weather wise) that we decided to walk to the park as a family.  Clara decided to ride her bike and we were all very excited that she is no longer scared of small hills!  She's determined to be a great bike rider.  Jeremy tried to get a picture of her riding her bike, but she got off her bike and posed as a kitty instead....

Saturday morning, Jeremy and I spent about 4 hours out in our yard.  We got a little garden box put together, and even planted some strawberries with more planting to come later.  We checked all our sprinklers to make sure none had gotten grown over during the winter, and we even put in an edge around our wood chips.  Yea for our own yard that we can do what ever we want with.

Then, Jeremy has been wanting to go see the new mall in down town Salt Lake.  So we drove up there to see exactly what the City Creek fuss was all about.  I think it was a mistake.  Don't go to a brand new mall on a Saturday!  There were a ton of people and I stressed about Clara getting lost the entire time.  But she loved her balloon dog!

• During the Sacrament on Sunday, Clara was being a little loud.  So I quietly reminded her that she was supposed to be thinking about Jesus.  Her response: "I don't want to think about Jesus, I just want to think about fun!"  Jeremy and I started laughing (as silently as possible,) which made her even more furious because she was definitely not making a joke!

Jordan River Parkway

My sister and I decided to take the kids for a walk.  It was nice to get out of the house on a Saturday.

Here the kids are admiring the work of some beavers.

Here's Kaycee enjoying the attention.

And here's a friendly visitor that my sister didn't see until she was right next to it...

Here's Clara with her new favorite rock that she named Stoney.

And of course the baby cows that Clara insisted I take a picture of.  She proceeded to tell me which baby cows were boys and which were girls based on the color of tag in their ears.

• I was up on the computer one day this week when I heard Clara calmly say, "Mom, I need some help please."  When I went downstairs, Clara had tied herself up in the strings of the blinds and couldn't get herself out.  She was actually pretty scared that she was going to have to stay like that, but I had to take a picture of her before giving her the lecture about how dangerous it is to play with those.

Birthday Parties

We had 2 birthday parties to attend this week.  The first was for Clara's friend, Jared.  They were able to go to Jump around the Town, and Clara actually played the whole time too!

 The day after this birthday party, Clara came down with a fever.  So I called to tell her preschool teacher that she wasn't going to come.  Turns out, 3 of the 5 kids were sick (and all attended the birthday party!)
Clara woke up that morning and I went to fix her breakfast as usual.  She couldn't decide on which cereal she wanted, and ended up choosing none.  30 seconds later, I turned around and found her like this:

So we spent the rest of the day like this:

Then on Friday, we went to a birthday party for 2 of my nephews.

While we were there, Clara became attached to this one balloon that didn't quite get blown up correctly.  She kept talking about how it looked like an alien and when we got it home, she would draw an alien face on it and it would be her best alien friend.  Well, at one point in the evening the balloon popped.  Clara started sobbing; I figured it was because it was loud and scared her.  But when she could finally talk, she said, "That was my best friend!"

So we spent the rest of the evening trying to find just the right balloon that could become her "best friend."  Glad we finally found one that would work!

Sledding!

We FINALLY had enough snow to go sledding.  Since our neighbor's yard has a small hill, we went sledding with them in their back yard.  The kids had so much fun out there. 

At one point, Adilyn decided to be Rudolf and took turns pulling Santa!

When we were done sledding, we went inside for some hot chocolate!

• Clara asks me if I think she looks beautiful several times a day.  I always respond with an emphatic yes.  But she caught me off guard one morning when I was helping her get dressed: "Do you think I look beautiful naked?"  I hesitated because I felt completely uncomfortable saying my usual emphatic yes answer to that question, but at the same time I don't want to give her a body complex.  So I finally just said, "I think you are beautiful no matter what."

• Clara wanted me to take a picture of her princesses.  When I showed her the picture afterward, she got mad at me because the princesses were too small.  Hence the reason for picture #2.